The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds fell within an hour of each other on Thursday at the Guadalajara Open Akron, as Elsa Jacquemot and Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva blew the doors off the WTA 500 event with upset wins over Elise Mertens and Veronika Kudermetova, respectively. 

Guadalajara: Scores | Draw | Order of play

The two former junior stars, both of whom won girls’ singles titles at Grand Slams in 2020, have been impressing in Mexico thus far — and each is through to her second career, and biggest, quarterfinal at Hologic WTA Tour level as a result of her big win. Jimenez Kasintseva last reached the final eight of a tour-level event three years ago in Seoul as a lucky loser, while Jacquemot got this deep at an event just last month at the WTA 250 Tennis in the Land event in Cleveland. 

The left-hander from Andorra, a history-maker for the land-locked nation as the junior champion at the Australian Open five years ago, needed 1 hour and 31 minutes to take out the second-seeded elder Kudermetova sister, ranked No. 26, for her first career Top 50 victory. Her best previous win was against then-World No. 57 Zhu Lin at last year’s Mutua Madrid Open.

To do it, the World No. 123 saved all four break points she faced and took advantage of a subpar serving day by Kudermetova, who landed just 47% of her first serves.

Jimenez Kasintseva upsets Veronika Kudermetova, into first quarterfinal since 2022

In a tournament that has been plagued by rain, Jacquemot kept her cool to come from behind in a match that began on Wednesday. The 2020 junior Roland Garros champion took the court trailing by a set but up 3-2 in the second set against No. 1 seed Mertens. But the Belgian was erratic on resumption — racking up 62 unforced errors in all — and Jacquemot won eight of 10 games upon resumption to establish a healthy advantage.

Jacquemot needed every bit of the cushion after a total of 2 hours and 25 minutes of play: From 5-1 down, Mertens won three straight games to close the gap to 5-4 before Jacquemot finished off her own career-best win by ranking. 

The two 20-year-olds are two of five unseeded quarterfinalists so far in Guadalajara, as Colombia’s Emilana Arango, 17-year-old American Iva Jovic, and wild card Nikola Bartunkova are also through to the final eight.